


be brave; be free; but come home to me

by mira_blue



Category: The Owl House (Cartoon)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Character Study, Heavy Angst, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Inspired by Music, Mother-Daughter Relationship, One Shot, Regret, Sad Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-06
Updated: 2020-09-06
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:15:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26321755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mira_blue/pseuds/mira_blue
Summary: The worry starts when the texts stop.orCamilla learns that there are things much worse than having a daughter who never fits in. Things like said daughter disappearing into thin air, as if she'd never existed, never burned bright.
Relationships: Camilia Noceda & Luz Noceda
Comments: 41
Kudos: 275





	be brave; be free; but come home to me

**Author's Note:**

> title is from zeppelinmoon

The worry starts when the texts stop.

Camilla sends Luz her regular _How’s your day been, mija?_ text, and she frowns when she sees that the message is _sent_ but not _delivered_. But it doesn’t bother her too much – not yet, not then – because her daughter has a tendency to misplace her phone, or not charge it, or drop it and break it and make it stop working.

In any case, this isn’t a new occurrence, and the day isn’t even halfway over, and Camilla has another work shift starting soon, so she puts her phone away.

(She leaves the ringer on, though, because the sooner she hears from Luz, the better she’ll feel.)

Later that evening, exhausted and weary, Camilla checks to see if she’d missed any texts or calls.

She hadn’t.

Feeling dread trickle down her throat, she unlocks her phone and calls Luz. The phone _beeps_ for a second, but then –

_“The number you requested is currently unavailable. Please try again later.”_

Her heart skips in a funny little stumble, as if it beat _backwards_ for a moment. This sensation usually happens on rare occasions – when Luz had been four, for example, and had tried to eat a bunch of colourful pebbles. Camilla had had her back turned, but then her heart had done that weird little skip and somehow she’d immediately known that her daughter, her _niñita_ , was in danger. She’d seen Luz’s small hands reaching for the pebbles and stopped her just in time.

Now, ten years later, a part of her feels like whatever danger Luz is in, she’s too late to stop it.

It’s absurd, really. Camilla has no reason to be thinking these thoughts. There’s no reason for the sudden anxiousness that washes over her. Luz had failed to reply – that was all, and that was typical.

But it was more than that, wasn’t it? Luz hadn’t just failed to reply – she didn’t even _get_ the message in the first place.

 _So her phone’s broken,_ Camilla tries to rationalize. _It has to be, because Luz never goes this long without charging it._

Yes, that had to be it. Camilla _wants_ that to be it, because a broken phone might mean the expense of having to get it replaced, but it also means that Luz is okay.

She puts her phone away again, this time with hands that aren’t quite steady, and gets in her car. On the drive home, she gets an idea.

She’ll call the camp. Their number is written in a small notebook she keeps in her drawer. She’ll call them and ask for her daughter, and then Luz would answer and tell her how she broke her phone doing something ridiculous, something only _Luz_ would do, and Camilla would chastise her but her heart wouldn’t really be in it because the relief would be too overwhelming. Camilla imagines this so well, she can almost hear Luz’s voice. _Lo siento, mama._

Fifteen minutes later, she’s pulling into their driveway. By now, the sun had fully set, the darkness taking over.

Camilla leaves the car, barely remembering to lock it. She fumbles with the house keys for the first time in years, cursing under her breath in Spanish. After what feels like forever, the right key slips in and the door opens.

She walks inside, flicking the hallway lights on. She only closes the door behind her before going upstairs and into her room. Sure enough, the notebook is right where it’s supposed to be.

Camilla opens it and scans the pages for the camp’s name and number. As soon as she finds them, she wastes no time in taking out her phone and dialling in the number.

The phone beeps once. Twice.

_Come on. Pick up. You have to pick up._

Her thoughts are interrupted when the beeps are replaced with a voice saying, “Reality Check Summer Camp, how may I help you?”

 _Finally_. “Yes, hello. My name is Camilla Noceda. I am calling for my daughter, Luz Noceda? Is there a chance I can speak to her?”

“One second, ma’am.”

Camilla takes a deep breath, trying to settle her nerves. She’d had a bad scare, but it would all be over soon enough.

“Ma’am? Are you still there?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t mean to be rude, but are you _sure_ you’re calling about Luz Noceda?”

The worry returns, sharper than ever. “Of course I’m sure. She’s my _daughter_. She’s been attending this camp for weeks now.”

A pause. “Ma’am...I really don’t know how to tell you this...but the only thing I have on Luz Noceda is that her camp reservation was _cancelled_ weeks ago.”

Camilla feels her blood turn to ice. “ _De qué estás hablando?_ By _who?_ I never cancelled it, and no one else could’ve even _known_ about it!” Because in this world, all Camilla and Luz had were each other.

She hears the camp counsellor take a shaky breath. “Someone must’ve known, ma’am. Someone close to you, maybe? We don’t just let _anyone_ cancel these reservations. They would’ve had to verify that they were responsible for your daughter in some way.”

Camilla doesn’t answer. This all feels like some horrible nightmare. No one else could’ve known about it. And yet _someone, somehow_ had.

“Ma’am? Are you alright?”

A low sound escapes her throat – a sound of pain. “My daughter... _I don’t know where my daughter is!”_

“Okay, okay. I’m going to alert the authorities. Is that fine with you?”

Camilla nods before realizing that they can’t see her. “Yes. Yes, please.”

The counsellor reassures her once more before hanging up, promising to call back soon and update. For a long time afterwards, Camilla sits on the edge of her bed, phone in hand, too numb with shock to move.

***

Almost an hour later, Camilla is sitting on the floor with Luz’s letters scattered all around her.

The authorities have been called. The camp has been questioned and searched. Currently, they are on their way here.

Camilla knows she’ll probably have to hand in the letters when they arrive. And she will. But first, _she_ will go through them.

In the light of recent events, the letters seem almost...disturbing. They sound nothing like Luz. Before today, Camilla had chalked that up to the fact that maybe the camp really _had_ changed Luz. But now...

Now, she doubted that Luz had written them in the first place.

The thought fills her with uneasiness. She glances at one of the more recent letters, and something catches her eye.

_~~LUS~~ _ _LUZ_

As eccentric as Luz had been, as strange and odd...she never misspelt her own name.

The reality of the situation crashes onto Camilla at full force. Her daughter never made it to camp. Her daughter was missing – probably kidnapped. Probably in danger.

It’s too much. All those weeks of missing Luz pale in comparison to what she feels now. Like someone had cut her open and left her to bleed.

For the first – but not last – time that day, Camilla begins to cry.

***

The next few days are an awful blur.

Camilla is only half aware as she answers the questions the detectives ask. _Is it likely your daughter ran away? Has she been missing before? What was the last message you received from her? When was the last time you saw her?_

Camilla tells them all she can. She tells them about the last time she’d seen Luz – at the bus stop near their house. A team goes out to search the area, going as far as into the neighbouring woods. They search for days, but turn up empty handed.

(They _do_ find something in the woods, though – a strange, old, abandoned house. They look through it, of course, but the house seems as if it had been untouched for decades. There are no footprints in the thick dust, no fingerprints on any of the surfaces. The house is nothing more than a shell.

One man, however, notes that there are pieces of burned paper in front of the house. Despite the fact that they appear recent, no one pays them much mind. After all, what relation would burned paper have with a missing girl?)

The letters are checked for fingerprints, but none appear. This, more than anything, convinces Camilla that they were not written by her daughter.

The search continues – not only around where Camilla and Luz live, but around the camp too. At some point, it reaches the news, then the internet.

And yet, nothing. No Luz, no sign of Luz, not even the slightest whisper. It was as if she’d disappeared off the face of the planet.

Camilla is told to wait, to stay home in case Luz comes back. And Camilla wants that to happen more than anything. She wants her little light to come home. She spends every waking moment regretting ever sending Luz away. So _what_ if Luz was weird? So what if she was obsessed with people and worlds that weren’t even real? Camilla couldn’t remember why that had ever bothered her in the first place.

She wants Luz back, strangeness and all. Luz, who was _good_ , and kind, and charming in her odd little ways. Luz, who always made dumb jokes whenever Camilla was stressed in an attempt to make her mother laugh. Luz, with her stories and colours and the way she could bring joy into the most boring of days.

Luz, who’s gone.

***

The week ends, and Camilla feels as if she’d aged sixty years. The week ends, and there’s still nothing. The week ends, and Camilla fears that this might be the first of many, many awful weeks.

That night, she steels herself and goes to Luz’s room. It had been searched too, of course. But she hadn’t been able to be in it without wanting to break down in tears.

It was just – too _Luz._ The messiness of the place, the posters, the fairy lights and stuffed animals and _Azura_ bed sheets, the discarded art supplies...

It even still smelled like Luz. Like lemon detergent and cookies.

Camilla walks in. She stops and looks around, not really thinking, just feeling that same sense of stabbing loss. She makes her way carefully over to Luz’s bed – making sure not to disturb anything in the room, making sure not to change the way Luz had left it.

The bed isn’t big, but Camilla fits. She lies down and grabs one of Luz’s many comforters, burying her face in it. She cries for a long time, but eventually falls asleep.

And in her dreams, Luz is there – alive and well and laughing. In her dreams, there is no camp, no search, no pain.

When she wakes, they _will_ be there. When she wakes, sleep will evade her once more.

But for now, she’s asleep. And Luz is there.


End file.
